The present invention relates to electrical connectors and more particularly to board-to-board connectors having improved grounding design.
Board-to-board connectors are widely used for interconnection of one circuit board to another circuit board. One type of such connector assembly is disclosed in co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/795,753, filed on Feb. 6, 1997 now U.S. Pat. No. 5,915,976 and assigned to the assignee hereof, and is further illustrated in FIGS. 6 and 7. As shown, the receptacle connector 1 comprises an insulative housing 11 and a pair of grounding plates 12 (only one being visible) attached to two opposite sides of the insulative housing 11. The grounding plate 12 has a number of engagement arms 122 each provided with kink 123. The mating plug connector 2 comprises a number of grounding contacts 213. In assembly, the engagement arms 122 of the grounding plate 12 of the receptacle connector 10 and the grounding contacts 213 of the plug connector 2 will contact with each other to establish a grounding shield. The entire specification of the above-said co-pending application is incorporated herein by reference.
In the above-said connector assembly, the plug connector is not provided with any grounding plate, like the grounding plate on the receptacle connector, such that under high frequency operations electromagnetic interference, electrostatic potential, etc. may cause adverse influence to the signal transmission. Further, it is noted that besides the two opposite sides of the insulative housing, no more other portions thereof are provided with any grounding arrangement. A more complete grounding or shielding arrangement is thus desired. Moreover, the contact condition between the grounding plate 12 of the receptacle connector 10 and the grounding contacts 213 of the plug connector 2 can be improved to provide a reliable and effective contact.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,697,799 and 5,746,622 issued to Consoli et al. disclose a shielded receptacle connector and a plug connector, respectively, which involve the provision of a shell member extending across mating face and side walls of individual insulative housing.
The present invention aims to provide an improved grounding arrangement which is simple in construction while effective in its intended purpose of shielding or grounding.